I had the privilege of spending last week in Silicon Valley, the hi-tech home
of, among a thousand others, technology big-hitters Google, Apple, Cisco,
Facebook and YouTube.

While there, and in common with many Britons who travel to that remarkable part of central California, two questions keep recurring: why aren't there similar household names in the UK and what lessons, if any, should we learn from the world's leading crucible of start-ups and entrepreneurialism?

The response has been remarkable. Nearly 150 comments have come in, almost all thoughtful and precise in their analysis of the problems the UK can face when it comes to backing bright business ideas. We will now collate the comments and use them as part of our regular discussions with businesses, representative bodies and politicians who are genuinely interested (and too many pay easy lip service to this sector) in how to gain maximum leverage from the great ideas we have in the UK.

In California, I spoke to start-up entrepreneurs, venture-capitalists and established technology players. The results of those discussions will be appearing in The Sunday Telegraph business section and online over the next month as we seek to understand the difference between success and failure in such a complicated world.

This weekend Sheryl Sandberg gives the clearest insight yet into how Facebook, long criticised as a clever idea that'll never make any money, is gaining ground in revenues and is already "cash positive" and "making a profit". Ms Sandberg, who also sits on the boards of Disney and Starbucks, is the financial brains that every smart internet business needs. Allied to the creative driving force and Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is every day looking a stronger business proposition.

Sandberg makes it clear that an initial public offering is not going to happen anytime soon but, goodness, when it does it is going to be a tasty offer with lots of zeros attached.

What I didn't want the debate about Silicon Valley vs the UK to be is another "Briton bashing exercise" – as one post points out. As many others also said, there are success stories on this side of the Atlantic – with names such as Autonomy, Sage and ARM regularly mentioned. They may not be "trip-off-the-tongue" memorable but in technology they are as successful as any glittering members of the A-list.

Listening to the conversations in California and reading the comments online, there are five key points worth considering:

1. Fear of failure

Many people said that in the UK we see failure as exactly that – something to be avoided and a stain on a business person's reputation. In America there is a very different attitude, with "permission to fail" built in to the business model. As one person wrote in a post, in America "bankruptcy is just very intensive market research" and many people "fail their way to success".

2. Conservative universities

In America it is very common for professors to take stakes in their students' start-ups. Although this can lead to problems over intellectual property agreements, the fact that academics see themselves as part of the entrepreneurial process is instructive.

Here, we have been far too nervous about the links between industry and the university sector, somehow believing that such links pollute the purity of academic research.

Stanford, the academic mainstay of Silicon Valley, has been operating a muscular pro-industrial policy since the 1890s (yes, that's the 1890s). Although many British universities now have flourishing business links and research networks, they are still less likely to have the "entrepreneurial chromozone" one post so vividly describes.

3. Venture capital

In the UK, venture capital is often seen as growth capital for a business that already has pretty robust financials. VCs come in to take the business to the next stage and sell-out relatively short term to make their margin – they want full business plans and are risk-averse when it comes to the world of start-ups. The dot.com crash only served to heighten this trend.

Jon Garside, the commercial director of Syphan Technologies which runs its digital security business from Skipton, North Yorkshire, revealed that such is the difficulty gaining funding in the UK, the next £100,000 tranche for the company is coming from the US. That means Syphan will start a branch there and move its development focus to the other side of the Atlantic. Will this be yet another lost tech opportunity?

The US model is more variegated, with wealthy entrepreneurs (many of whom actually made their money in the technology business) running small start-up funds to promote innovation.

4. Legal support

In the US many legal firms waive upfront fees for a cut in any future profits from a business. The same system should be widespread here.

5. Education

Do we really value mathematics and engineering in our education system? As one senior player with a global technology company said, the tendency here is to see education success as the route to becoming a lawyer or a doctor, not an entrepreneur.

These points are only the start, of course, and many tech firms will succeed in the UK – copying, for example, our winners in the Formula 1 industry where we lead the world. But it is important that we learn any lessons we can.

Mandelson's unwise comments about Barclays' Bob Diamond

Peter Mandelson made the somewhat ridiculous claim in an interview published yesterday that Bob Diamond, the President of Barclays, is the "unacceptable face" of the banking sector who has little value beyond "shuffling paper around".Although we know Lord Mandelson is playing a bit of politics ahead of the general election, it ill-behoves the Government's Business Secretary to describe Mr Diamond in such dismissive terms.

Barclays Capital, for which Mr Diamond is responsible, is a UK success story and is now one of the top five investment banks in the world, bringing in millions of pounds of tax revenue a year.

With comments like Lord Mandelson's it is little wonder that Britain's businesses are turning their back on Labour.

Sir Richard Branson's attack on Alistair Darling's ill-judged National Insurance increase in today's paper reveals another British leader, once sympathetic to Labour, who is heartily fed-up of the anti-business rhetoric that is emanating from Downing Street.